8/10

Splinter’s new record 'Click. Swipe. Buy.' sets itself as a Molotov cocktail hurled at the hollow rituals of modern life. With eight tracks of uncompromising intensity, the London punk trio weaponise distortion and disillusionment to dissect the rot beneath our screen-lit routines. With vocals that snarl and riffs that grind like concrete underfoot, this album is both a purge and a provocation.

Lead single 'Get A Job' and its blistering title-track set the tone with a scathing indictment of hustle culture and viral success myths, laying bare the tension between working-class grind and influencer fantasy. It’s not subtle, and that’s the point.

Elsewhere, 'Arms Race' fuses pummelling rhythms with pointed fury at a world where commerce trumps conscience, while 'Modern Recipe' skewers the digital dating scene with all the tenderness of a barbed wire valentine. 'Fruit Machine Scum' delivers one of the album’s most gut-wrenching moments, a brutal character portrait that pulls no punches on addiction, class, and generational trauma.

What elevates 'Click. Swipe. Buy.' beyond blunt-force politics is the precision of its production. Engineered by Andy Hughes, mixed by Caesar Edmunds (whose fingerprints are all over records by Wet Leg and Queens of the Stone Age), and mastered by Katie Tavini, the album sounds as sharp as its message. Each track is layered chaos, tightly controlled but never sanitised.

Splinter have always thrived in the margins, but this album feels like a line in the sand. With 'Click. Swipe. Buy.', they’ve distilled the rage, irony, and desperation of a society eating itself into a raw, unrelenting punk opus. It’s bleak. It’s brilliant. And it’s absolutely essential.